Hi,

I kinda updated a server here with these commands (followed
http://nslug.ns.ca/pipermail/nslug/2.../006927.html):

emerge sync
fixpackages (did this myself)
emerge -Du world

I had to mask some packages like
>sys-libs/pam-0.78
=sys-libs/cracklib-2.8.2
<=media-video/transcode-0.6.11
because those gave me shit, but in the end all went well.

Now the next step would be:

emerge -v(p) depclean

But I've been told that this is quite dangerous, or does the
revdep-rebuild fixes again what emerge depclean might have broken?

Regards,

Wimmy

Wim Cossement wrote:
> [snip]
>
> emerge -v(p) depclean
>
> But I've been told that this is quite dangerous, or does the
> revdep-rebuild fixes again what emerge depclean might have broken?

It /is/ dangerous, and revdep-rebuild will /not/ fix things broken by a
depclean.

When you do 'emerge -p depclean', some very important warnings are
displayed.

One of the warnings is that "USE FLAGS MAY HAVE AN EXTREME EFFECT ON THE
OUTPUT." It then goes on to recommend running 'emerge -vaD --newuse
world' _before_ proceeding with a depclean.

Pay attention to the warnings. Amongst others, always check the depclean
list for sanity, and make sure you first re-emerge packages with changed
use-flags.

Hth,
--
Ben M.

Wim Cossement enlightened us with:
> Now the next step would be:
>
> emerge -v(p) depclean
>
> But I've been told that this is quite dangerous

It is.

> or does the revdep-rebuild fixes again what emerge depclean might
> have broken?

Nope.

Always use the -p or -a option with depclean, and make 100% sure that
you won't uninstall important packages. If you want to keep them, but
depclean wants to remove them, add the package too
/var/lib/portage/world.

Sybren
--
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?

Ben Measures wrote:

> Pay attention to the warnings. Amongst others, always check the
> depclean list for sanity, and make sure you first re-emerge packages
> with changed use-flags.

Also, it wouldn't hurt to make binary packages of the to-be-removed
packages before proceeding. 'quickpkg' makes this process relatively
easy, and in case problems occur, and you regret removing some package,
this provides a quick way to recover. Even if you accidentally destroy
portage, you could just untar the relevant binary package (or, failing
that, boot a LiveCD to untar it with). In any case, it should be
impossible to completely destroy your system, if you make backup binary
packages like this.

--
PeKaJe

"Microsoft Wheel. Now with 8 sides for a smoother ride."
-- The Ghost in the Machine, in COLA

On 2005-04-21, Ben Measures <saint_abroadremove@removehotmail.com> wrote:

>> But I've been told that this is quite dangerous, or does the
>> revdep-rebuild fixes again what emerge depclean might have broken?
> It /is/ dangerous, and revdep-rebuild will /not/ fix things broken by a
> depclean.

It is only dangerous on systems, where the world profile is not properly
maintained (unfortunately this is probably the majority of gentoo
installations). The OP should get his world profile right, and any breakage
that occurs, because some packages are linked against removed libs without
portage being aware of that, will be fixed by revdep-rebuild.

> One of the warnings is that "USE FLAGS MAY HAVE AN EXTREME EFFECT ON THE
> OUTPUT." It then goes on to recommend running 'emerge -vaD --newuse
> world' _before_ proceeding with a depclean.

As long as there are ebuilds out there, which don't take care of all
configure options, I'd prefer to recompile packages *after* running
revdep-rebuild. Of course it's wise to avoid trashing core packages you're
going to need in order to compile other things.

Imagine: Application foo has optional libbar support, libbar is installed on
your system and is going to be removed by "emerge depclean". The foo ebuild
doesn't explicitly disable the libbar support, so while libbar is installed,
a compilation of foo will link against libbar. If you now remerge foo
*before* running "emerge depclean" it will break, after "emerge depclean"
removed libbar. Of course, revdep-rebuild will fix that, but I prefer
recompling packages only once.

On a typical single user installation I don't see a problem in temporarily
breaking non-core packages by running "emerge depclean" first.

Regards,
Stefan.

Sybren Stuvel wrote:
> Wim Cossement enlightened us with:
>
>>Now the next step would be:
>>
>>emerge -v(p) depclean
>>
>>But I've been told that this is quite dangerous
>
>
> It is.
>
>
>>or does the revdep-rebuild fixes again what emerge depclean might
>>have broken?
>
>
> Nope.
>
> Always use the -p or -a option with depclean, and make 100% sure that
> you won't uninstall important packages. If you want to keep them, but
> depclean wants to remove them, add the package too
> /var/lib/portage/world.
>
> Sybren

Thanks for the tips so far, but I have a lot of packages that will be
pruned, this is the summary:
Packages installed: 735
Packages in world: 271
Packages in system: 62
Unique package names: 555
Required packages: 571
Number to remove: 174

I'll filter out the most obvious that are not needed, and also try to
make a binary package of most of them for safety.

Also, what is world to system?

I guess that it's kinda like a base system?

Regards,

Wimmy

Wim Cossement wrote:

>> Always use the -p or -a option with depclean, and make 100% sure that
>> you won't uninstall important packages. If you want to keep them, but
>> depclean wants to remove them, add the package too
>> /var/lib/portage/world.
>
> Thanks for the tips so far, but I have a lot of packages that will be
> pruned, this is the summary:
> Packages installed: 735
> Packages in world: 271
> Packages in system: 62
> Unique package names: 555
> Required packages: 571
> Number to remove: 174

Freaky ... 174 unneeded packages ... And you've run 'emerge -DuavN
world', right? What did you do, install Gnome and regret it?

> I'll filter out the most obvious that are not needed, and also try to
> make a binary package of most of them for safety.

Could you do a script that limits the list to only package names, and
post it? Perhaps we might spot something dangerous ...

> Also, what is world to system?

'world' is everything *YOU* need to have installed. As a general rule,
you'll rarely find libraries in the world file, because they're brought
in as dependencies to stuff you actually need. It should only be for
apps (and if you're a developer, libs) that you use directly. 'system'
is for the stuff that will more or less break core functionality if
removed. Depclean will never suggest anything from the current system
class (though occasionally stuff may be removed from 'system'), because
the system class is a subset of the world class.

> I guess that it's kinda like a base system?

That would be a good description. It's the bare minimum required to
have a working Gentoo system.

--
PeKaJe

Why use Windows, when there is a door?

> Freaky ... 174 unneeded packages ... And you've run 'emerge -DuavN
> world', right? What did you do, install Gnome and regret it?

Eh, not really, I use always emerge -Du (or Dut) world...
But I actually once needed to install Gnome because some NIS users could
not log in to KDE 3.3 once upgraded from 3.2, wich was quite shitty...
And I thought I got rid of most gnome stuff, but Gaim seems to need

> Could you do a script that limits the list to only package names, and
> post it? Perhaps we might spot something dangerous ...

Here you go!

app-admin/addpatches
app-arch/file-roller
app-arch/rpm
app-cdr/cdrdao
app-crypt/cryptplug
app-crypt/opencdk
app-crypt/qca
app-crypt/qca-tls
app-doc/doxygen
app-doc/kdelibs-apidocs
app-doc/qt-docs
app-shells/tcsh
app-text/a2ps
app-text/aiksaurus
app-text/dgs
app-text/enscript
app-text/gpdf
app-text/htmltidy
app-text/recode
app-text/sgmltools-lite
app-text/wv2
app-xemacs/apel
app-xemacs/cc-mode
app-xemacs/cookie
app-xemacs/dired
app-xemacs/edebug
app-xemacs/ediff
app-xemacs/edit-utils
app-xemacs/efs
app-xemacs/elib
app-xemacs/emerge
app-xemacs/fsf-compat
app-xemacs/gnus
app-xemacs/ilisp
app-xemacs/mail-lib
app-xemacs/mailcrypt
app-xemacs/mh-e
app-xemacs/pcl-cvs
app-xemacs/prog-modes
app-xemacs/rmail
app-xemacs/sh-script
app-xemacs/speedbar
app-xemacs/tm
app-xemacs/vc
app-xemacs/vm
app-xemacs/w3
dev-cpp/gconfmm
dev-cpp/gtkmm
dev-cpp/libglademm
dev-cpp/libgnomecanvasmm
dev-cpp/libgnomemm
dev-cpp/libgnomeuimm
dev-cpp/poslib
dev-libs/boehm-gc
dev-libs/boost
dev-libs/libcdio
dev-libs/libcroco
dev-libs/libole2
dev-libs/libsigc++
dev-libs/libtasn1
dev-libs/libunicode
dev-libs/lzo
dev-libs/mm
dev-perl/Audio-Tools
dev-perl/Audio-Wav
dev-perl/Crypt-SmbHash
dev-perl/Digest-MD4
dev-perl/MP3-Info
dev-perl/Safe
dev-perl/gtk-perl
dev-perl/libvorbis-perl
dev-python/pycrypto
dev-python/pyorbit
dev-python/python-biggles
dev-python/pyxml
dev-util/desktop-file-utils
dev-util/gtk-doc
dev-util/kdbg
dev-util/kdoc
dev-util/pccts
dev-util/yacc
games-misc/fortune-mod
gnome-base/control-center
gnome-base/eel
gnome-base/gail
gnome-base/gdm
gnome-base/libghttp
gnome-base/libgtop
gnome-base/librsvg
gnome-base/nautilus
gnome-extra/at-spi
gnome-extra/bug-buddy
gnome-extra/gcalctool
gnome-extra/libgsf
gnome-extra/nautilus-cd-burner
gnome-extra/nautilus-media
gnome-extra/zenity
kde-base/cervisia
kde-base/kde
kde-base/kdeaccessibility
kde-base/kdeedu
kde-base/kdetoys
kde-base/kdewebdev
kde-base/kompare
mail-filter/procmail
media-gfx/eog
media-gfx/graphviz
media-gfx/sodipodi
media-gfx/transfig
media-libs/compface
media-libs/fnlib
media-libs/hermes
media-libs/imlib2
media-libs/jbigkit
media-libs/jpeg-mmx
media-libs/libdvdnav
media-libs/libdvdread
media-libs/libmovtar
media-libs/libmpeg2
media-libs/libquicktime
media-libs/mpeg-lib
media-libs/openquicktime
media-libs/sdl-image
media-libs/sdl-ttf
media-libs/xvid
media-plugins/gst-plugins-libpng
media-sound/madplay
media-sound/mpg123
media-sound/normalize
media-sound/sox
media-video/avifile
media-video/ffmpeg
media-video/mjpegtools
media-video/vcdimager
media-video/xanim
net-dns/dnsquery
net-dns/hesiod
net-libs/gnutls
net-libs/libfwbuilder
net-libs/libsoup
net-libs/linc
net-misc/vino
net-nds/gq
net-www/mozilla-firebird-cvs
net-www/webapp-config
sci-chemistry/gromacs
sys-apps/apmd
sys-apps/fbset
sys-apps/miscfiles
sys-apps/netkit-base
sys-apps/setserial
sys-apps/sh-utils
sys-apps/slocate
sys-apps/textutils
sys-devel/gdb
sys-fs/cryptsetup
sys-fs/device-mapper
sys-libs/libieee1284
www-client/mozilla
www-misc/htdig
x11-libs/gtk+extra
x11-libs/gtkscintilla2
x11-libs/gtksourceview
x11-libs/libwnck
x11-libs/libxklavier
x11-libs/libzvt
x11-plugins/gaim-encryption
x11-themes/gtk-engines-metal
x11-themes/gtk-engines-pixbuf
x11-themes/gtk-engines-redmond95
x11-wm/metacity

The only thing that is really needed is KDE up and running, Apache + PHP
+ MySQL, Postfix and bunch of Pyhon stuff used for PyMol, in case this
helps...

Bye,

Wimmy

Wim Cossement enlightened us with:
> Here you go!

You probably want to make binary packages of the following:

> dev-libs/libunicode
> dev-util/yacc
> net-libs/gnutls
> sys-apps/miscfiles
> sys-apps/sh-utils

> The only thing that is really needed is KDE up and running, Apache +
> PHP + MySQL, Postfix and bunch of Pyhon stuff used for PyMol, in
> case this helps...

Well, then you probably want kde-base/kde, don't you? It's now listed
as being ready to be removed.

Sybren
--
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?

> You probably want to make binary packages of the following:
>
>
>> dev-libs/libunicode
>> dev-util/yacc
>> net-libs/gnutls
>> sys-apps/miscfiles
>> sys-apps/sh-utils

Thanks, I'll try get those there...

> Well, then you probably want kde-base/kde, don't you? It's now listed
> as being ready to be removed.

I don't really know but I dont think so.
I got rid of kde-base/kde, since it's a metapackage and put all the
separate parts I want (to get rid of games and edu) in my world file,
hope this is OK?

Wim